Tag: training

The Holiday Lake 50k is 2 days away! On Saturday I’m going to be freezing, exhausted, and sore, but more importantly I’m going to meet up with an old friend…Pizza. The meeting will be brief. So brief in fact that I will probably not even recall inhaling this beautiful piece of food, but by golly it’s going to taste FANTASTIC!

Three weeks ago I gave up pizza, ON PURPOSE, with the sole purpose of giving myself a reward to look forward to during the race.

Race day is fast approaching for the Holiday Lake 50k. One more week to go. Training is essentially done and now all I have to do is sit here and TAPER. This means that you run way way less than normal to rest your legs up for race day. So my week looks like this:

Monday: Light weightlifting, 5 mile trail run, recovery yoga

Tuesday: Light weightlifting, 4 mile trail run, recovery yoga

Wednesay: Recovery yoga, go for a walk or play around on the slackline

At this point I’ve started figuring out what works for me when training for these difficult events. Whether or not its an adventure race, a marathon, or an ultramarathon, I’ve figured out how to successfully handle the last two weeks of pre-race training.

This isn’t going to be about how runners taper (fancy word for “SLOWING DOWN” or “NOT RUNNING AS MUCH”). Instead these are a lot of mental tricks that help me through the most difficult part of the training plan- NUTRITIONContinue reading

Whether you are training for a marathon, an Ultra or even something crazy like a obstacle race or adventure race, one day you will glance at your training calendar and spot these dreaded words: LONG RUN.

The long run. The day of training that simultaneously has the time consumption of race day and none of the excitement. The absence of good vibes makes this something to power through. You won’t be out there with hundreds of other racers…you will be alone. There will be no gunshot (or one of my favorite parts of ultras the announcement of “go whenever the hell you want, it’s going to take you literally HOURS to finish ha ha ha”). Delicious Aid Station treats and spectators are non-existent.

During your long run YOU have to rely on pure IRON WILL to get your butt out of bed and spend the next few hours punishing yourself…on PURPOSE!! Continue reading

This is going to be a quick post today. I promise I’m working on some serious articles and I have some awesome experiences I want to write about (mancations, meeting personal heroes, adventure races, book reviews and other crazy things), but today I want to do just one thing:

Scare the crap out of my mom.

Since beginning my trail running adventures a few years ago she has been adamant that I will step on a snake, specifically the venomous copperheads. “Watch out for snakes” is what she tells me every time I mention heading out for a run. I’m pretty sure in her mind I’m hopping over like 50 of these creepy crawlers every single day. In fact, she bought me a little tag to put on my shoe with my name and phone number on it in case of a snake attack. Continue reading